poetry in which Don Marquis expresses himself most adequately, that is, tragi-comic poetry.
Take Old Man Murtrie dying behind his prescription counter in a Brooklyn drug store, with God and the Devil disputing as to which of them has got to take in his miserable soul; first neither of them wants him; then both of them want him, and Death peevishly urges them to settle it somehow—pure poetry! Take the story of the man who, when he has killed his wife out of jealousy set in motion by the Locked Box, finds that it contains only a tender letter to him, marked "Not to be opened till after my death," confessing that now, after five years of marriage, she has begun to love him passionately; she has sealed the confession only because she does not wish him to know there was ever a time when she did not love him. Take the story of "Looney the Mutt": a half-witted tramp who has lost his pal seeks him, seeks him, following false clews, scoffed at, mocked at, fondly, eagerly, hungrily—seeks him as a man seeks a God who forever eludes him.
We are, I think, on the main trail that runs from "The Dark Hours" back to "Dreams and Dust." In 1915, when this volume was published, Don Marquis was both technically and essentially a poet. I am struck by the sort of poet he was then. There is in this first collection little indication of historical passions, little indication of locality, no very particular or specific attachment to "Nature," and no significant love-interest. The dominant note is an almost Arnoldian concern about God and the soul and their relations in a world which has lost faith in supernatural guidance.
Whenever he turns from polishing a rondeau or a
